Vanilla and Lavender
by Merks
Summary: [COMPLETE] Awakening to a place of the past it always troublesome, especially if lives hang in the balance.
1. Confusion 1 of 2

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Bleach.

He fell, coherent thoughts deteriorating as he felt the grass beneath him. The foul stench of human blood tainted the air, and he was faintly aware of sadistic laughter. The receding vision that his eyes captured showed him the blurry image of his opponent before the darkness took him completely and he passed out.

When Ichigo Kurosaki woke, he wasn't quite expecting to see what he did. He was expecting to see… well, something much different than white-washed ceiling and walls. He sat up abruptly, and two things took his breath away. First, he had no sign of the injury that had felled him what seemed like only moments ago. Secondly, when was he last in a modern day human bedroom that reminded him of… his… his bedroom? With a soft gasp that seemed uncharacteristic, he stood and walked the length of the room, therefore confirming that it was indeed his own. A thought then ran through his mind.

_Is this a dream? I could've sworn I was… Rukia? _He walked what he would have liked to call calmly to his closet and slid the door open at a normal pace. Everything was as a normal, tidy, un-lived-in closet should look like, without a trace of life whatsoever. Ichigo frowned, and closed the door. He looked under his bed, but nothing was out of the ordinary. Normally one wishes for things to be completely normal, but in this case, Ichigo was practically begging some unseen force that Rukia was here, that everything that happened in the Soul Society was just a horrible dream.

He checked every crevice, nook and cranny of his room, but to no avail. There was nothing he could even remotely relate to Rukia, or Kon, for that matter. Nothing whatsoever, and in all honesty, it upset him. Was she made up too? A dream inside a dream? Or was this a dream? Was his home born of his imagination, as though his subconscious was trying to tell him something, something important. But what, if that was even… His brain hurt, so he cut off thought. Maybe there was something useful downstairs. As if on cue, his stomach growled. _Like food…_

He slowly made his way downstairs, treating the floor like glass and carefully treading along in his socks. He'd missed normal socks, those tabi were annoying as hell. When he cautiously came into the kitchen, Yuzu looked up from the pan of rice she was fussing over and smiled. "Morning Nii-san. Did you get a goodnights rest?" She asked him politely as she deposited the rice into four little bowls, pouring some thick beef & gravy stew over them.

He frowned. Now it was… yes, this was a dream, he was sure of it. Now to wake up. Sleeping in front of an enemy was never good for ones health. He sat down before another thought popped into his mind with a sort of urgency that he didn't think it would _ever_ get. _Kisuke's shop!_ It had to be there. It had to. He stood up so quickly that the chair tumbled down behind him, causing Yuzu to cry out.

"Ichigo!" She rarely used his name. "What are you doing?"

"I just remembered I have something I have to do! I'll see you later!" With that, he took off, completely forgetting to put shoes on.

**-x-x-x-x-**

He couldn't believe his eyes. Urahara Shoten simply _did not exist._ No nutty shopkeeper, no talking cat, no abnormally large man with an ass made out of iron. No little children with giant weapons or odd abilities or dreams of playing baseball. Nope, just a Health & Fitness shop. _Wonderful. The one time I actually want to see him._

Some people passing by during the usual foot traffic of a Monday morning paused to wonder about the orange-haired youth who's mouth hung open like he couldn't believe the vitamins in the store window he was staring at were on sale. He gaped for about five more minutes before something horrible registered. _School. Was it still summer vacation? _He honestly took a moment to ponder if he'd prefer staring at a textbook or being shredded to bits by a Zanpakuto. Probably a textbook, but there was room for debate. He decided he'd go back—rather, **race** back home to check with whichever family member stood the higher change of knowing.

He tried Yuzu.

"It's still summer vacation Nii-san, it started only two weeks ago." _T-two weeks? This is completely before I left… Did that even __**happen**_ "Ichigo?" Her voice held a fragment of worry.

"I'm fine. I'll be back later, I have some things I have to take care of." He smiled reassuringly as though to inevitably tell her that everything was okay as it was, though he wasn't so sure. She caught it, being the rather bright one she was, but ignored it. Her brother was already secretive.

"Just be careful, Nii-san. Don't forget to look both ways!"

Ichigo paused to put shoes on, then headed to the home of Inoue Orihime. He got halfway there before letting his mind wander again. He'd have to stop letting that happen, because when it did he got rather unwanted and complicated thoughts. And those confused him. Greatly. Why exactly was he going to Orihime's? To check if she was there, to verify with his own conscious that he wasn't the only one back 'home'? (That was of course assuming that this was his home and not some screwed up scenario.)

That was probably it, made the most sense, didn't it? He knocked softly once, before throwing some 'oomph' into it and pounding at her front door.

She answered within the next couple of seconds, and was just as surprised to see Ichigo there as he was to see her.

"Hey Orihime, I was wondering if you could come with me and Rukia to a few shops." He snuck mention of Rukia in there to see her reaction.

"Who's Rukia?" She asked in reply, inviting Ichigo into her home.

"Oh, just a friend. Don't worry, she probably can't make it anyway..." _What the hell is going on?_

**Owari  
**Please tell me what you think. I want to know if I should continue or not.


	2. Confusion 2 of 2

**Disclaimer: **I'll be frank with you. Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo. I also do not own Pez. (Or whatever the company's called.)

Weeks had passed, and Ichigo's calendar bared marks for almost a month. He had never drawn on it before, but in this case it was as though he was counting however many days it took for his sanity to return.

Each new day brought little information, and Ichigo could only become more and more confused. Ishida was just a face, and when he had called him Uryu the one time he saw him, he was slapped. Chad had no recollection of any of the events Ichigo could've sworn had happened, and Inoue had no idea why Ichigo was so on edge.

At home, things were no different. His little sisters were a little concerned by the face that he no longer shouted like he had before, and always seemed to be deep in thought. It's was a change for everyone, but no one understood less than Ichigo.

To suddenly be transported into a reality that matched neither option you had grown used to would have to be tough. He had gone through several notebooks recording everything he could remember about the Soul Society, just in case he was robbed of other memories or something of the sort.

He'd watched endless hours of TV, he'd even played around with a bamboo stick, swinging it around out front. He'd earned himself some stares, but he was used to it now. There were so many things that were so different from how they had been before, and he was still puzzling over them.

Ever since he'd confronted Orihime with knowledge of Rukia, only to end up being the only one with memories, he'd stayed alone. He would go for walks in the rain, trying to sort through the mess he had felt that his life had become. Paired with the walks he would lay outside at night when the air was slightly brisk and smoke a cigarette. It was a nasty habit he had picked up to ease the stress, and had done everything in his power to keep it quiet.

This night in particular was one of the many he spent walking around. The rain created sheets along the windows of the buildings he passed, his hair and clothes matted to his skin. His breath came in short gasps as he slowed to a halt, hands on his knees. He'd been running after something, but it was something he couldn't pinpoint. It didn't matter anymore, as his muscles ached and protested further exertion.

He sank to a seat on a near-by bench, letting the rain fall onto his pale features. There were bags under his eyes from his sleepless nights, and he knew it had to stop soon, as school would be picking back up soon, and he didn't need to nod off in class or something stupid like that.

A passing car honked loudly at him, and he snapped his eyes open to wonder what was going on. For a moment he saw a flash of someone with red hair standing in the middle of the street, but it was gone as soon as it had come. Renji..? The chances weren't likely. It was probably just his mind playing tricks on him. Lord knows that it'd been doing a lot of that lately.

Like, just last week, he could've sworn he saw that little bubblegum haired girl Yachiru running around at the park. Or Byakuya paging through a magazine in front of a shop. In fact, he could almost guarantee that he wasn't imagining the jerk Ichimaru manning a Sashimi restaurant the other day. Something in his mind had dislodged itself and was screwing around with him. It wasn't funny. Far from it in fact.

He'd been shopping as well. He'd gone around buying whatever crap reminded him of anything in the Soul Society. He'd bought anything from an American made 'Pez Dispenser' that had a duck on it to a knife that oddly resembled Zangetsu. He'd placed everything in a box that was currently residing under his bed with the notebooks that he had filled.

Shaking off the image that had flashed before his eyes, he headed home, letting thoughts circulate through his head. _What if Soul Society was a figment of my imagination,_ he mused for the umpteenth time, closing his eyes for a moment and letting the faces of everyone he'd met flash in the darkness that surrounded him. What if he'd made everything up? What if none of them actually existed?

Or worse, what if they did? How was he supposed to know? How was he supposed to fix what was going on? What if everyone existed, the Soul Society existed and Rukia was still facing her impending death? What would Ichigo be able to do? And which would he prefer? He honestly couldn't say.

He entered his house silently, creeping up the stairs and into the bathroom to rid himself of the smell of rain. He shed his clothing and once again inspected his un-marred body. No scars bigger than his pinky finger. Would he prefer to have dark scars crossing his body? He still couldn't say.

Stepping into the shower, he ran a hand through his orange locks. He was so **confused**. Nothing made sense, nothing. Nothing he did or could think of could compensate for the things he didn't understand, and it bruised his once soaring ego to know that as of this moment he was completely helpless. He couldn't gather his bearings long enough to explain to his father the reason for his strange behavior. If he needed to be around to save Rukia, then he wasn't fulfilling that duty either. He was instead letting the hot water of the shower relax his straining muscles and pull him into a coma of bliss for the moment.

The soap he grabbed to wash the dirt from his skin smelled like lavender and vanilla, scents he would've normally cursed himself for wearing. But once again, these were not normal times. He lathered the sweet-smelling substance across his chest, pausing for a moment above his heart. Was he even alive? Maybe he'd been killed, and this was a dream… He shrugged it off and allowed himself to be taken away by the comfort of his bathroom.

When he stepped out of the shower, he felt oddly refreshed. For the first time since he'd awoken to this place, he felt truly relaxed. Maybe he'd finally come to terms with the fact that it was hopeless to ponder so relentlessly over something so unbelievably confusing, or maybe he'd simply decided that he'd given up trying to understand it. Either way, he felt pleasantly numb as he slipped into his pajamas and lay under the covers of his bed.

The rain had stopped, and the storm was gone, but when he turned off his light he could've sworn there was a flash from outside his bedroom window. He went over to it and opened it, sticking his head into the damp night and looking about. No where that he looked could be accountable for the sudden burst of light, and after a few moments he simply let it slip from his mind and he returned to bed.

Just as he was drifting off, he could've sworn he heard something. He dismissed it, but then it came again. It sounded like a small thud on his desk. Sitting up and turning his head sharply to his window, he felt his breath catch somewhere deep in his throat.

There was a shadowed figure perched on one tabi-clothed foot, black grab wrapped about it's body and tied with a white sash. The unexplainable flash came again, illuminating the figures features.

Ichigo let a breathy gasp escape his lips as he stood, eyes wide and shocked. "Rukia…?"

**Owari  
**Sorry. I know it's confusing, but it's meant to be that way. Sorry, but there simply is no explanation to what happened to Ichigo.


End file.
